By

Share

Blog Roll

Fashion Friday: Salt Lake is Online Resale Savvy

Mar 22nd 2013

Maybe it’s our state’s abundance of accessible thrift stores, or maybe it’s living within a culture that promotes resourcefulness and creativity while still living within our means, but it’s recently been proven that Utahns are taking advantage of secondhand shopping, and their thriftiness is literally paying off.

Whether they’re shopping in local thrift stores, consignment shops or on national resale websites like thredUP.com, locals are both buying and selling gently used clothing to keep valuable cash in their pockets.

ThredUP.com is a children’s online resale shop that began a year ago when co-founder and CEO James Reinhart found himself staring into his closet, not wanting to wear anything in it.

“I knew I wasn’t the only one,” Reinhart says. “It got me thinking about the waste and efficiency in the clothing industry. There was no easy way for consumers to trade out clothes they don’t wear for new ones.” That’s when Reinhart received the inspiration to co-found thredUP, which is like a consignment shop, but exclusively online.

“Our customers turn the clothes they don’t wear into cash and shop brand name clothes at up to 80 percent off, all without ever leaving the house,” Reinhart says.

According to the report, Salt Lake comes in fourth in the nation for resale savvy residents, most of which appear to be buying more than they sell on the company’s online shop.

“The report helps to showcase which brands parents should invest in if they are planning to recoup costs later on through online resale,” Reinhart says.

Brands like Gymboree, Oshkosh, GAP, Janie & Jack and Levi’s are a few among the best to buy, with Gymboree coming in first for best resale value.

Customers interested in selling through thredUP can request a Clean Out bag, then fill it according to the company’s guidelines for acceptable clothing donations. Once the clothes are received by thredUP, they closely review each item and decide which will make the cut to sell online.

“Every item that we cannot resell is entered into our 100 percent program, a partnership with national textile distributors and recyclers to ensure that every item is re-used and doesn’t end up in a landfill,” Reinhart says. “We continue to look for new opportunities to repurpose and reuse unacceptable items so that they are either donated or recycled appropriately.”